In answer to Grace Calderon-Serrano’s Magic Hour (the “typical story of a typical Muslim Internal Migrant”) our Filipino Voices colleague BenignO has written:
Unless this “ancestral land” exists as an entity in the current Law . . . Grace and her people may as well continue running away from the proverbial gunfire-in-the-horizon even as others choose to live by the real essence of giving peace a chance by assimilating into the framework of order (and all its imperfections) being created by those who exercise legitimate sovereign authority over these domains.
On the other hand, Bencard, our newest FV blogger, reacting to my post on the same “great piece of prose” by Grace, has posted the following:
In all practicality, a tribal group cannot be in perpetual state of “war for independence” against the established order. Something has got to give but for sure it’s not the dominant party. I know you’re some kind of ideologue but, as a lawyer, I have no doubt of your all-out respect for the rule of law that you have sworn to uphold.
It is unproblematic for Bencard, a lawyer, and BenignO who conducts himself as a cosmopolite, to comprehend the logic which governs the behaviors of nation-States and the rationality of the institutional and legal norms of the “modern societies” presented in the context of the dominant culture – our culture.
But such a disposition may also signify a paucity of an adequate and meaningful conception of the ethnic problem.
This may be due to the fact that our world tends to obscure the meaning and substance of indigenous society and relationships, often leading to one-dimensional and simplistic appreciation of the indigenous issues.
Boxed in the world we know – consumerism, the market economy, Western democracy and their supposed intrinsic goodness – we put up a myth of our own that establishes the superiority of our system or our socio-political and juridical culture, such as our borrowed constitutionalism, in a manner we think so impeccable we consider the conceptualization of humankind by the rest (in Sharia and Umma or in tribal metaphors and analogies for example) as of negligible value. We forget that each society or culture has its own logic and coherence whereby its modalities (e.g. natural resources management such as “consecration” of lands and mountains, political organization based on kinship or religious rituals) must be construed or judged, and not in terms of our criteria.
Also, we align ourselves with a new world order or paradigm that, aided by powerful imageries, is apt to estrange us from our Others, even as it fosters the assimilationist policies of what’s come to be known as neo-colonialism. The hegemonic and intolerant contents of the opposition to the MoA-AD, all too evident in various fora in the Philippines and even here in FV, are indications of this estrangement.
“Go figure,” as BenignO is wont to taunt FV readers. Assimilation is perceived as favoring State culture and hegemony while self-determination as diminishing sovereignty. But is it really too improbable to strike a happy balance? Or consider other workable alternatives such as federalism that’s capable of producing similar results?
The MoA-AD, a “remarkable document” says Cotabato Archbishop Orlando B. Quevedo, speaks of “associative” relationship and of “shared authority and responsibility.” Why are those otherwise so simple a concept now incomprehensible or perplexing if we are not in fact entrapped in our juridical straightjacket?
In an earlier post, I’ve urged the following course of action for the all-Christian Supreme Court to consider in the MoA-AD case:
. . . if the judiciary is daring to get wet in the highly politically charged dynamics of the Mindanao peace process, there are many ways for it to skin the cat so to speak – in terms of judicial “social engineering” within the present constitutional framework – for as long as the will for creative jurisprudence or the sagaciousness to be functional agents of progress (to paraphrase legal realist Dean Pound) obtains. Precedents are not wanting. Besides, constitutional interpretation is after all applied politics. Not too long ago, the SC has reversed itself on the constitutionality of the Mining Law, finding it valid apparently to pave the way for, or to attain the end of, economic development. We will need that same judicial realpolitik to attain peace in the land and render justice to all Filipinos.
The reality that stares at us is that even the concept of sovereignty born out of modernity is under assault today by the realpolitik of post-modernity and global empire. Haven’t we seen the network of power (USA, Japan, Australia, OIC and foreign energy and corporate plantation investors) that’s been at work in the making of the MoA-AD? Can’t we see how some of these geopolitical players are virtually heedless, at the sufferance of our naïve politicians, of the sovereignty – yes that sacrosanct notion of power relations among nations based on equality blessed by international law and convention – of an inconsequential country, the Philippines? Could it be that sovereign statehood or territorial sovereignty is not even a final telos of human society because it is as primitive as the divine kingship of the ancient?
Yes, go figure and think of the Lilliputian counterforce that’s sprouting from below probably best exemplified by the diasporic Filipinos. What will some of the offspring (fluent in German, Italian or with Brooklyn accent) of the 10 millions OFWs be thinking along these lines? And what kind of “magic hour” is in store for the Filipino global communities running away for the most part from the outbreak of economic privation while permeating territorial boundaries like wild vines in a reverse colonialism of sort, and whose national solidarity though may be bonded only by emails or the blogosphere finds strength in the commonality of good intentions for their homeland, or as somehow the Other in their adopted country, in their simpleness, only by some prideful symbolism like Manny Pacquiao who looks like them or by a grand celebration of Barrio Fiesta in Vienna, New York or Toronto?
Today it is Obama in America; could it be Ibana in Italy or Spain a generation or two from today?
Now, whether those at play in the current political landscape are the Big Guns and a tiny nation or a sovereign State against a tribal group, the awareness that “magic hour” generates in us (that of thinking of our Others as someone with soul and feelings, or not anyone to be manipulated or taken for a ride at someone else’s pleasure) becomes indispensable in attaining Raimon Panikkar’s “plurality of windows” in intercultural relationships. Won’t the horizons made available by those different yet similar windows help the contending parties protect the structure of societies, ours or theirs, from collapsing?
On the other hand, the mere willingness to enlarge our viewpoints may yet approximate a universal horizon of the human experience that’s more than fleeting even in the midst of social, cultural, political, juridical and spiritual differences.
Popularity: 2% [?]
What about the Tasaday Tribe? Give them back their land. Let them have a Tasaday Nation!
Should we let the Igorots secede as well?
Abe is that you in the picture? Looking good!
Short and Fleeting?
It was Long and Tedious,
A Political Manifesto wrapped up in a beautiful prose poem.
Too bad we can’t eat the wrapper.
@ Dean Jorge Bocobo
Long and Tedious, correct. Just like interminable walking is.
Political Manifesto, correct. Isn’t everything political? Even “Annie” is political, for crying out loud.
Too bad you don’t know how interminable walking feels. :(
“On the other hand, the mere willingness to enlarge our viewpoints may yet approximate a universal horizon of the human experience that’s more than fleeting even in the midst of social, cultural, political, juridical and spiritual differences.”
I’m very new here at FV. I only chanced upon the site last week. And I say that the above quoted lines are some of the wisest words I’ve seen in the blogosphere.
Grace,
I meant what I said about the Wrapper.
(For some strange reason, my comment to benignO’s reaction-post to my article does not register in the comment box over there. Forgive me Abe for posting it here. Your article refers back to my article anyway, so it might also be fitting to put this comment here. Thanks. This non-techie newbie is lost both in FV and the WordPress platform.)
I would have wanted to send this comment to benignO:
benignO,
One of the tags in your reaction-post to my article says ‘loser mentality.’ I can’t help but tell you this. Internal migrants/displaced people/refugees do not have ‘loser mentality.’ They don’t need to. They’re plain losers.
Get off the armchair, bro!
Grace, that’s probably the Akismet spam filter misidentifying your comment as such. It sometimes does that to me as well.
What to do, cvj? Nick, SOS.
Nick will be able to retrieve your comments from the spam queue. Alternatively, you can try to comment from another IP Address (another PC) under another name on that thread.
Grace, I apologize about the comment, it was caught in our spam filter. it is showing up now..
I really have to agree with DJB.. I honestly was struck by the piece.
Cvj, thanks. I’m trying. I’m also hoping that one of these days I’ll run or bike with DJB to the Mountain Province, or maybe, just do some “interminable walking.”
Grace, thanks. I’ve been really inspired by your piece because it has somehow humanized the dialogue by removing the focus of the peace process from the object (e.g., the MoA-AD) to the subject (e.g., the parties).
Thanks, Abe.
Yes, there are victims in this whole shebang. Much as they don’t want to be helpless, they suffer during this whole process (read: years) of rhetoric and legalese between a government that’s painfully democratic that it wants to hear everyone out and be accommodating (for whatever that means) and a radical Islamist group that uses religion to render philosophical what really is a clear political agenda.
This peace process is a sham. Radical Islamists will not settle for anything less than the culmination of their political agenda (a.k.a self-rule).
And I’m totally confused why a government patiently talks it out with radical Islamists!
abe, as a concept, this so-called “post modern realpolitic” or “new world order”, i.e., world government, is nothing new in human history. the object of every dominant power throughout all known earthly history was to conquer and rule the known world of the time. from the first tribe of cave-dwelling homo sapiens to the present united nations, the aspiration has always been a “global empire” superior to any idea of individual sovereignty. thus, we had a progression which included the egyptian, assyrian, babylonian, persian, greek, and roman civilizations, in addition to empires such as the mongolian, turkish, british, spanish, madjapahit, among others.
all such attempts at hegemony, including that of germany and the former ussr, have failed after causing enormous amount of bloodshed and senseless wars. i believe the idea itself carries with it the seeds of its own failure. no power on earth can govern the whole world and expect to achieve real peace, prosperity, human rights, basic freedom, and public order.
there is no better substitute for “nation-state” with its own sovereignty and territorial integrity. but this sovereignty and territory cannot be further subdivided to accomodate each and every group that wants to have its own separate and independent sovereign status, without diminishing the concept of statehood.
a nation-state, like any individual human being, has the duty and the right to preserve itself, and to fight and resist any threat to its existence, whether internal or external, with all the forces at its command.
I’m with Grace on this issue. And not just about “interminable walking.” It’s about the need for us Filipinos to break out from our stereotyping and pejorative profiling of our ‘less privileged’ that you almost taste the bitterness of a caste system.
There may indeed come a day, tragically,that the Philippines as we know it, or think we know it, will be dismembered by the sheer failure of Manila to keep it together, and the effective assertion, through a bloodbath, of a segment of our population’s (5-million-strong) right to self-determination, with the words from another nation’s declaration of independence from their mother’ empire ringing in our ears.
For now, the effort at staying together can begin with Manila-centric Filpinos getting down from their imaginary intellectual and elitist economic high horses, chilling out, and abandoning the regionalistic/ethnic bigotry that permeates our society.
Spot on, Ding.
Let’s look at it from down south’s POV – for a change.
If you ask folks from down there (these are the poor and uneducated folk) about their plight, they will answer, “Kasi po dahil sa mga taga-Luzon.” It’s uncanny that they associate the seat of government and the executive decision-makers as “taga-Luzon.” These people have probably not even seen a map of the entire Philippines.
From their POV, they are isolated from the rest of the Philippines. And that’s been a prevailing frame of mind of common folk.
Now, add the element of a radical group that has a political agenda (Radical islamism is Islam + Political Agenda) to the prevailing mindset of people who do not easily sway out of tradition (and thus become proponents of their status quo) and you have a situation that Philippines has on its hands right now – a situation that has gotten out of control, in fact.
Take away the political agenda of a radical Islamist group and you still have the sentiment of why Bangsamoro wants a separate state. They might as well be separated because, ANYWAY, they’ve been treated ‘with separation’ by those who are “taga-Luzon.”
We fed the fodder for the propagandist PR that radical Islamists’ thrived on to make them what they are today.
Bencard, I hope it will help if I quote anew from a paper written by Prof. Joseph Andaya of Saint Louis University regarding the ancestral domain of the Ibalois of Baguio. According to Andaya:
“. . . the State is itself a social fact and must be, therefore, demystified and denaturalized in order to cut through the singularity paradox (i.e. that the State encompasses its own opposing groups). When indigenous groups dialogue with the State, they do so with a group of people imbued with a culture of ‘State.’ The State can be thought of, by itself, as a cultural entity with its own philosophy about itself and the world. It, nonetheless, possesses the infrastructure to take its declared truths, among this the claim that it is a collective representation of all groups in the polity, and apply them hegemonically.
“The resolution of indigenous and State claims over national resources – including land – is to be done through the recognition that the state and an ethnic group constitute TWO cultures with oftentimes contrary and opposing philosophies about each other and the world. What is needed is mutual recognition of this cultural gap and an intercultural dialogue to bridge it.”
Andaya’s thesis is in accord with my own thoughts that “mutual respect [in regard to the MoA-AD] may mean that conflict resolution should proceed upon the recognition that the GRP and the Bangsamoro are two competing ideals in the first place and not where the government insists on state policies and principles as entrenched in the Constitution as the only frame of reference.”
btw, you omitted mentioning one active hegemonic power that has caused “enormous amount of bloodshed and senseless wars.”
Grace,
On a somewhat personal level, my work has taken me to such places as Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, and also have friends as far down south as Jolo and Zambo, and also the late Toto Paglas of Maguindanao/Cotabato, not to mention Manny Pinol. I hate it when other seem dismissive or even make light of the dangers. This is why in my own blog, I’ve been more closely following this BJE episode as only a true understanding of this and tangent issues can make all of us better informed. Am glad there has been a similar vigoroud focus on the matter, albeit dissonant at times.
i’m with you here, ding — and because of this i’m very sad that there’s a major digital divide between, well, to use grace’s terms, the “taga-luzon” and the “moro”, and the representation of the moro in cyberspace has been sites like luwaran.com and not blogs of the average reasonable moro.
as for the dissonance — i prefer to be part of a forest instead of a plantation, don’t you?
Yes, bro, yes. So long as the trees in our forest are anchored deep in history and in OUR national interesr. :)
abe, who represents the collective will of the “indigenous” groups and how is that will determined? and how does such a representative chosen, by the number of his armed followers? one and only one nation in a given territory, under one constitution and enlightened legal and judicial systems, must exist to attain permanent and true peace.
BENCARD: Who represents the collective will of the “indigenous” groups and how is that will determined?
ABE: Basically, it is a matter “internal” (if you haven’t heard this term bandied about recently) to the parties.
You will probably appreciate this proposition better if you look at it from the standpoint of the GRP, whose juridical culture we presumably are more familiar with.
You see, as it is turning out now, not only that the GRP’s peace panel is being shown as having betrayed the will of the Executive (some people are in fact seriously calling for their indictment for treason) but that the Executive itself has acted without or in derogation of the “collective will” (if that expression means not only concurrence among the three branches of the government but also “consensus” among the stakeholders). (I, of course, object to this view since under settled constitutional law doctrine, the President is supposed to be the “sole organ” of the government in negotiating for peace or resuming the conduct of war.)
It is possible that like the GRP peace panel, the MILF does not represent the “collective will” of the “indigenous groups” that it purports to represent (one reason perhaps that Grace calls the peace process a sham even as we may consider as genuine her fear that MILF’s ultimate goal is independence).
You will note however that the MoA-AD refers to three important terms: the MILF, the BJE and the Bangsamoro. They are not one and the same.
Bangsamoro (or Bangsa Moro), it should be pointed out, is now both a constitutional and legal concept .The Constitution has mandated the creation of “an autonomous region in Mindanao” and the “applicability of customary laws governing property rights or relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral domain.” On the other hand, the implementing Organic Act of these constitutional provisions considers “Bangsa Moro people (to be) regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations that inhabited the country or a distinct geographical area at the time of conquest or colonization and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own socio-economic, cultural and political institutions” (Shouldn’t these spare us now the efforts to dig into the anthropology of the Tabon Man or go back to the Big Bang Theory?)
The establishment in the MoA-AD of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE), without its composition being clearly spelled out, is problematic to me considering its “authority and jurisdiction over the Ancestral Domain and Ancestral lands, including both alienable and non-alienable lands encompassed within their homeland and ancestral history, as well as the delineation of ancestral domain/lands of the Bangsamoro people located therein.”
It is not clear whether the BJE will be representative of the “Bangsamoros” which according to the MoA-AD refers to “all Moros and all Indigenous peoples of Mindanao.”
If BJE means MILF, then I agree with Grace that the peace process that produced the MoA-AD is a sham.
But you could also conceive of the BJE as constitutive of the various Moros and Lumads (and maybe even willing Christians) within the Bangsamoro, where MILF or MNLF are just among the myriad groups competing for representation in the BJE.
BENCARD: How does such a representative chosen, by the number of his armed followers?
ABE: Apparently in the case of the MILF, it was chosen by the number of its armed followers BUT remember that the choice was made by the GRP precisely because for all practical purposes there is no point on the part of GRP to be obliged negotiating with a group with only slingshots around their necks.
BENCARD: One and only one nation in a given territory, under one constitution and enlightened legal and judicial systems, must exist to attain permanent and true peace.
ABE: You may be confusing a nation with a state. A nation is a cultural concept. A state is a political entity. There can be one state composed of several nations. Spain and UK are good examples.
abe, thanks for your rather circuitous answer to my straightforward questions. so you agree that there is no definitive authority that represents the moros outside the aegis of the sovereign nation-state. that is not the case with the GRD, whose authority is derived from the law and the constitution. whether or not it exercised that power properly is irrelevant to my question. that can be the subject of another debate. GRD is a juridical and legal entity that has the power to negotiate. the moros, as i said, consist of several rag-tag groups that cannot bind each of their members, let alone each other. putting these groups in equal legal footing with GRD is absurd.
if you may take note, i addressed my comment to you knowing that you are a lawyer and a law professor at that. when a nation occupies a defined territory, united under one constitution and enlightened legal and judicial system, isn’t that the “state” that you are technically referring to? why are you making a big deal that i called it a nation instead of a state or a “nation-state”, a term that you are fond of using as if all your readers are as technical as you are and would understand the difference? i don’t think you can win debating points that way.
At the end of the day it is the grouping of people that manages to unify the most number of individuals, raise the biggest army, control the largest amount of resources, and implement the most STABLE and SUSTAINABLE system of propagating said grouping (such survival systems evolved from tribalism to statehood so far last I heard) that wins the day.
Deal with it people.
Anyone who thinks that the world works in any way other than how I describe it above is living in La La Land.
Sorry, I mean to say “perpetuate” instead of “propagate” the said grouping I mention. :D
Benign0 (at 9:13 am), from the Bangsamoro point of view, that’s the strongest reason why they will not agree to Disarmament (as advocated by DJB among others).
Bencard, I’m not trying to win a debate especially when lives are being lost in Mindanao and we have a Supreme Court that’s willing to shoot from the hips with an AK-TRO, a media with a penchant understating the Moro narrative, and a majority Christian community comfortably giving in to sheer intolerance of their “brothers.” I’m trying to inform the best way I can.
What’s circuitous when I stated that “It is possible that like the GRP peace panel, the MILF does not represent the ‘collective will’ of the ‘indigenous groups’ that it purports to represent”?
Since I’m not privy at all to any of the political dynamics among the Moros, the Lumads and probably some Christian settlers in Bangsamoro (I’m hoping Grace can enlighten us on this) I cannot tell with certainty that the MILF has any “definitive authority” to represent its supposed constituencies.
What I’m definite about is that by the text of the MoA-AD, the GRP (not GRD), meaning the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, has treated the MILF with certain sovereign rights or at least with some international status or connotation – and rightly so if we would base such treatment on the historical experience of the European Powers (from where “modern societies” have derived the practice of treaty-making or similar arrangements) with the tribal groups in the Americas.
Before the Europeans (and later the Americans) resorted to what benignO calls their “survival systems,” the indigenous peoples (or “rag-tag groups” as they might have been belittled at times) in the Americas had always been treated as “sovereign people” in arrangements that might look like the MoA-AD. It was only later that using their might (yes, BenignO, the army, their resources and implements and likewise their SC arrogating powers under their own constitution and laws) the Americans abrogated many of those treaties.
Also, I cited Spain as an example because Catalonians for instance are different in national origin from the other inhabitants of Spain with distinctive language and traditions (for at least a century Catalonia had been governed by the Moors) and like the Moros of Mindanao the Catalonians fought for separation from Spain for a long period of time. Under a federated system ratified in a plebiscite in 1977, the “nation” of Catalonia is now autonomous but within the “state” of Spain.
abe, stripped of all unnecessary words, what you are actually saying is that the MILF was “recognized” and given a semblance of “sovereignty” by the GRP (not GRD, big deal) through the MOAD-AD.
in the first place, GRP was a creature of the constitution and laws of the state. it’s action is, legally speaking, the collective will of the the state (if properly consummated). therefore, whatever personality and authority MILF possesses, it was through and under the sovereignty of the state, not from itself because it has none to begin with.
in the second place, there is no consummated MOA-AD. it has never been completely enacted and implemented and it was, in fact, canceled. you know as well as i do that nothing, but nothing can come out of it and no vested right can be successfully claimed under it.
Bencard, I’m not sure you can continue to go about TELLING that a party you are exchanging ideas with is an “ideologue,” or is using “circuitous” or “unnecessary” words without SHOWING it, or think to avoid confronting substantive or new issues being raised by using you-know-as-I-do argument or simply repeating yourself. Somehow, you have to give FV audience the credit it deserves.
Please be open to fresh ideas like this one from Soliman Santos, a scholar on the subject (oragun man ini noy) who thinks that the MoA-AD is “an important document for the peace process, for history, for eventual understanding between two peoples, and no less for the Filipino people in addressing their various nation-building problems, not just the Bangsamoro problem,” and furthermore believes
abe, i should like to think that in all my comments on this subject, i have sufficiently explained and SHOWN my viewpoint and its basis, and why i thought your counter-comments were “circuitous” and unnecessarily wordy in trying to express your points. i described you as some sort of “ideologue” because of your ardent advocacy of ideas that run counter from prevailing and currently established principles. one example is this insistence that a tribal group has, by its own right, “sovereignty” separate and distinct from the dominant state that ecompasses it.
what we write here are open to all FV readers to read and scrutinize. i’m not gonna insult their intelligence by saying that someone is not giving them the “credit they deserve”. they will be the judge of that. in my debating days, we call that pandering to the audience.
i don’t know soliman santos and am not familiar with his work. it seems to me that what he was trying to express is the “aspiration” of the moros – a wish that can never be under the present set up. neither you nor i can argue against faith, i.e., sovereignty of Allah as written on the Qu’ran. the problem is we are dealing with physical reality of the here and now, and with the mundane constitutions and laws. but let me tell you, as long as there is that kind of faith-based sense of entitlement, there will always be rebellions, suicide bombings, beheadings, terrorisms and holy wars, among other things.
Alright Bencard, you are a great debater, then and now, and I will trust you on that.
All I’m asking is that we should avoid in our exchanges here ad hominem argumentation because I do believe resort to it is very counter-productive. Repartee fine. But let’s leave personal attacks to politicians like Sarah Palin and McCain (oops, scratch that too, hehe)
Anyway you wrote:
About the first part of your claim, may I ask you to agree or disagree with the following:
About your second claim, may I ask you to show that I have insisted “that a tribal group has, by its own right, ‘sovereignty’ separate and distinct from the dominant state that encompasses it.”
Lastly, if I advocate for the adoption of federalism of the Spain model as a solution to the Mindanao conflict, would you consider me an ideologue?
We non-lawyers are trying hard not to drown in your ‘ad-hominous’ exchanges, sirs.
But seriously now, that ‘magic hour’ piece by Grace has really elicited quite strenuous debate here at FV.
Can we please try to K-I-S-S and just get to the point: the Manila-centric model of condescending, tow-my-line governance has never worked, except for lapdog political warlords concerned only with amassing power and wealth ‘in the name of public service, and this our Moro brother also know too well dating back to the days of the Philippne Commonwealth when Mindanao was ‘internally-colonized, settled, and pacified in the Philippine version of the wild, Wild, South.
Is it any wonder that the MILF, through its vice chairman ghadzali Jaafar, is now offering a carrot to GMA with the ‘flattering remark that her DDR policy should not be disarmament-demolization-rehabilitatIon but disarmament-demobilization and REINTEGRATION?
Can you imagine MILF regulars being integrated into the Philippine Army, in the same way some of Misuari’s men have?
Social integration, perhaps. But will they take oaths of allegiance to the flag, swear on the Constitution, recite the Panatang Makabayan, and sing Lupang Hinirang?
abe, a dominant and generally-accepted “ideology” must remain until a better, workable, realistic and fair alternative is put in place. until then, it is is only fit for discussion, examination and scrutiny, as anything in a “free marketplace of ideas”.
ding, i’m dissapointed that your verdict on my exchanges with abe is that it is “ad hominous”. maybe abe is just being a little too sensitive but i don’t think i have called him anything that i wouldn’t call myself if the shoe is on the other foot. as you seem to be implying, it’s a lawyer thing.
Ding,
DDR may also mean peace in Mindanao is unlikely to happen during GMA’s political lifetime.
Bencard,
Not circuitous but not necessarily responsive.
What’s Grace reaction to Abe’s at Sept. 7, 2008, 8:35 pm?
Or Bencard’s to Abe’s at 9/8 on 11:45